


Rites

by yunyu



Category: Chinese History RPF, Historical RPF, Shin Sangokumusou | Dynasty Warriors, Sān guó yǎn yì | Romance of the Three Kingdoms - Luó Guànzhōng, Three Kingdoms History & Adaptations - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Chinese New Year, Coming of Age, Courtship, F/M, Festivals, Holidays, Immortality, Marriage, Rituals, Sex, Taoism, Taoist Sexual Practices, sensory issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-07-22 22:16:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7455940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunyu/pseuds/yunyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wheel turns. The same rituals repeat. The rituals that repeat between years, and the rituals that repeat between people. New Year. Birth. Coming of age. Tomb Sweeping Day. Marriage. The Dragon Boat Festival. Conceiving the next generation. The Mid-Autumn Festival. Death. New Year. Birth.</p><p>Zhuge Liang seeks a Way out. Huang Yueying wants to see the gears.</p><p>Draws from various Three Kingdoms-period sources (both historical and fictional) and also original invention.</p><p>Rated M for eventual explicit sexual content. (It's chapter 8. You pervert. ;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Renri

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike my other works, I am using traditional East Asian age reckoning here (it's explained in the first chapter) and also attempting to be realistic with style names (also briefly explained). Wikipedia expands on both topics if you want to know more.
> 
> Taoist names are given in translated form (Crouching Dragon = Zhuge Liang, Water Mirror = Sima Hui, Fledgling Phoenix = Pang Tong).
> 
> Nobody really knows anything about how women received and used style names because ancient Chinese historians thought women weren't worth shit. Sorry, but that's the truth. The few recorded female style names we have seem to be more concrete than male style names. I am ignoring giving Yueying a style name because frankly I like her name and it's already very pretty in both sound and meaning (it means "moon hero").

人日 Renri _:  
The seventh day of the Chinese New Year celebrations. In traditional East Asian age reckoning, this is the day that everyone gets one year older. A newborn baby is considered one year old when born (because of its time as a fetus), and therefore on the first _ renri _after birth, it is considered two years old. Therefore, when compared to Western age reckoning, the East Asian age is one to two years older. Traditionally men become adults at twenty (either 18 or 19 years old in Western age). At this age they receive a 字_ zi, _style name, which is how they will be addressed by peers. Those superior in age or rank can continue to use the given name. Using the style name of an inferior, and even more so, allowing the inferior to use your style name, is a sign of intimacy, affection, and humility on the part of the superior._

“Another year older!” shouted Pang Tong merrily. “Ganbei!”

“Ganbei!” chorused the young men around him, although some of them had to scramble to refill their cups to join in the toast.

It was the seventh day of the new year, _renri_ , the birthday of humanity.

“If Nüwa were here, I’d give her a big kiss in gratitude,” the Fledgling Phoenix slurred as he refilled his cup.

Xu Shu shook his head. “Would you take off your mask to do so?”

“No, I wouldn’t want her to change her mind about humanity’s value.” He belched, and slapped a hand onto Zhuge Liang’s back. “Twenty years old! Finally a man! Have you been given a style name yet?”

“Yes,” he said calmly, “although I can’t imagine it will be very commonly used. Crouching Dragon is the only name I need.”

“So you’re really determined just to study the Way?” said Xu Shu seriously, but Pang Tong was making an exaggerated shushing gesture.

“Badger him about the necessity of his attaching himself to some lord or other later, Xu Shu! Or… hey, I guess you’re twenty too! What should I call you now?”

“Yuanzhi,” said Xu Shu, embarrassed. “But you can keep calling me Xu Shu, master.”

“Nonsense! Are you saying I’m old? I’m only two years older than you, you know! What are the characters?”

Xu Shu traced them on the wall. Yuan as in first, Zhi as in straight.

“Excellent, excellent! Did the master give it to you?” He gestured to Sima Hui, who was passed out on the table with a dreamy smile on his face. “Good old Mr. Yes. You’re lucky, Yuanzhi! Mine is so dull, I think he was making fun of me.”

“The name Shiyuan is not any duller than mine,” said Xu Shu humbly.

“I know, but dull suits you!” laughed Pang Tong.

Xu Shu blushed, and Zhuge Liang shook his head. “Shiyuan, why do you insist on teasing him?”

“He gets rattled too easily,” said Pang Tong, tossing back another cup of wine. “Too easily accepts the worst. It’ll get him in trouble some day. Don’t think I’ve given up on rattling you! C’mon, what’s your style name? Is it that embarrassing?”

“Kongming.” He traced the characters without being prompted. _Ming_ , bright, was an obvious counterpoint to his given name of _Liang_ , light. But _Kong…_

“That awkward moment,” laughed Shi Tao, sitting to Xu Shu’s left, “when your Taoist master names you after Confucius.”

“That’s not necessarily true! It could be _kong_ as in _kongque_ (peacock)!” crowed Pang Tong.

“Surely nothing could be more Taoist than its simplest meaning of hole?” said Zhuge Liang, showing absolutely no distress or embarrassment.

“Brightness from a hole?” Pang Tong tilted his head. “Sounds dirty, somehow. I can’t say how exactly, but it’ll come to me.”

“You should abandon the idea that you are assisting Yuanzhi by teasing him, because your snideness will lead you into more trouble than his insecurity ever could.” Zhuge Liang leaned back in his chair and fanned himself.

“Takes one to know one!” said Pang Tong, refilling again.

Huang Chengyan, who had been sitting a little removed from the rest of the group, writing a letter, suddenly spoke. “What do you plan, now that you are of age?”

Xu Shu was startled, but many of the others laughed, including Shi Tao, who said, “Still haven’t given up on catching a son-in-law, huh?”

The older man sighed. “As you say.”

Xu Shu was glad he was already blushing from Pang Tong’s teasing. “Ah, I don’t think I’m quite ready to support a wife yet.”

Zhuge Liang suddenly stood up and moved to stand behind Huang Chengyan as Shi Tao snickered, “Oh, there wouldn’t be much supporting necessary, Yuanzhi! I understand she’s quite talented and completely runs our friend’s household on his behalf. In fact it’s a wonder to me he even wants to be rid of her.”

“His wife can’t stand the _sight_ of her,” said Pang Degong, and there was something about the way he leaned on the word _sight_ that made all of those who had laughed before laugh even harder. Pang Tong was not among those who laughed; instead he was staring into his cup as if he were reading oracle bones. Zhuge Liang gazed at him for a moment, then half-smiled.

“Is this letter from her?” asked Zhuge Liang serenely, picking it up from the table.

Huang Chengyan looked as if hadn’t much hope, but pressed on anyway. “Yes, it is. Some things she needs me to order for the household. That’s what I’m writing now.”

“Very elegant hand,” he said, returning the paper to the table.

“It’s the only thing elegant about her,” blurted the father, then darkened. “She is… I admit she is… ugly, my lord. Dark and sallow. But her talent matches yours.”

“I would like to meet her.”

There was a stunned silence, and then most of those present exploded in laughter. Shi Tao wiped tears from his eyes. “And you scold Shiyuan for being snide!”

“I am perfectly sincere,” he said. “When may I call on her?”

Huang Chengyan could not believe his ears. “Tomorrow—dinner?”

“On the day when the Kitchen God reports to the Jade Emperor? Certainly, if you do not think I will harm his report,” he replied with a smile.

The older man gathered up his things with shaking hands. “I will—she will—we will be honoured! Most honoured!” He bowed again and again as he left.

“Kongming, you are cruel to build up his hopes,” said Pang Degong, shaking his head.

Zhuge Liang bowed to take his leave as well. “I also have hopes, my friend.”


	2. the Report of the Kitchen God

the Report of the Kitchen God

_On the eighth day of Chinese New Year, according to some traditions, the Kitchen God reports to the Jade Emperor on the conduct of every household. The day that he leaves to make the report varies, but generally sacrifices are made to the Kitchen God and the Jade Emperor on both dates, just to be on the safe side. In addition, this day is a traditional day in some areas for a family dinner, partly to show the harmony of the household._

“Make her take it off!”

“Wife…”

“Make her take it off!” hissed his wife. “Don’t you see this is our last chance?”

Huang Chengyan turned back to the family altar, pristine and overflowing with all the collected offerings of the new year, with a pleading face that seemed to be seeking help for dealing with his wife as well as his daughter.

“Oh, you’ll kneel there and pray for hours, but you won’t take a single practical action! And you won’t let me take one either, so we’ll be stuck with her forever.”

“ _He_ won’t let you?” came her stepdaughter’s calm voice. “I’d like to see you try it.”

Mrs. Huang whipped around, furious. “I just might!”

“Please do,” Yueying replied sincerely. “I have not yet tried the trap on a human being, and I am curious if the result will be identical to the result on a dog.”

Her stepmother took a step back. “You’re bluffing!”

Yueying smiled, showing a mouth of yellow but straight teeth, and said nothing.

Mrs. Huang threw up her hands. “You stupid girl! We won’t even be able to arrange a _ghost_ marriage for you at this rate!”

“Wife…” begged Huang Chengyan again. “Shouldn’t you be getting things ready for our guest?”

“There is no need, father,” his daughter said. “I have ordered everything exactly.”

With a sudden look of horror, he said, “You’re not planning anything against him…”

“Of course not!” She was offended. “He is a guest, and I am actually eager to hear his thoughts when you converse, since you have so often described him as a genius. It is not as if anything beyond my looks will be necessary to discourage his desire.”

“If men had any sense,” said her stepmother, goaded beyond endurance, “they would be repulsed by your appalling mind instead of your looks, Yueying!” She flounced out.

“They do not notice my appalling mind, and that is why I will not marry,” Yueying said serenely, leaving the room as well.

———

As Zhuge Liang dismounted his horse, a number of young children came running at him, hands stretched out and opening and closing like overfed fish at a private pond. He laughed. “You’re out of luck,” he said. “I’m not married yet.”

The greedy little hands dropped and the faces pouted, and the children ran back to their prior activities. He laughed again and shook his head. Strange to think that if this went as well as he was hoping, next year he would indeed be passing out red envelopes, instead of receiving them.

Huang Chengyan and his wife appeared, neither looking hopeful at all. “Master Zhuge Liang, thank you so much for coming. Please let me take your horse to our stable, and my wife will bring you inside.”

He bowed, relinquished the horse, and followed the woman into the house.

The most hideous woman he had ever seen was sitting at a desk, working an abacus. Her hair was as rough and bushy as a handful of straw; her skin was a bizarre combination of jaundiced and sunburnt; her nose was crooked, and her spine was curved; and when she turned to look at him and smile, her teeth were as yellow as turmeric.

When he smiled back, he saw surprise flicker across her face. “Master Zhuge Liang?” she said, and then looked irritated, and shook her head.

He smiled more broadly as he bowed. “I am he, Lady Huang Yueying. What are you working on?”

She stood up and offered him her chair, and he took it. He studied the diagrams and calculations. “A wheelbarrow?”

“Something similar,” she said. “I call it a wooden oxen.”

He traced his fingers over one of the pictures with real wonder on his face. “It moves by itself?”

“Not very well, yet,” she confessed. “It cannot avoid obstacles, so it gets stuck.”

“Even so!” he said, and turned one of the pages over.

“Yueying,” said Mrs. Huang with annoyance, “I thought you said you would be working on your sewing today?” To Zhuge Liang she said, with desperation, “She sews very well, my lord!”

“Does she?” he replied absently, checking a calculation on the abacus himself.

“Oh yes! My stepdaughter is so talented,” she said with a false little laugh. “Just wait until you taste her cooking tonight!”

“I have the wooden men cooking tonight,” said Yueying, and her stepmother gasped.

“On the night that the kitchen god… you… you…!” She was struggling to hold herself back in front of their guest, and rushed off.

“Oh dear,” Yueying sighed. “I had better go and make sure she doesn’t do something stupid. We don’t want an explosion, do we?”

He laughed, but she was already gone.

———

At the start of dinner, the children at the back of the group running into the dining room stumbled over the ones in front of them who had stopped, stunned, to see that Zhuge Liang was sitting serenely at the table, cracking melon seeds.

“He’s still here?!” said the oldest boy to his mother.

Mrs. Huang’s strained smile twitched. “Of course our guest is still here.”

“But they _never_ stay for dinner after they see—“

“Xiao Wei!”

The voice foretold imminent smacking, and the boy shut his mouth and scrambled into his chair.

“Won’t you have some wine, Lady Huang?” said Zhuge Liang.

“No, thank you,” she said.

Her stepmother gripped her hands, barely able to contain herself in the face of such an appalling breach in etiquette. _He is a guest, indeed! You little harpy! For once it seems we have found a man blind enough not to run screaming from your hideousness, and now you resort to rudeness!_

Zhuge Liang did not appear offended. Servants began bringing out dish after dish, and he was anxious to place food upon the young lady’s plate. Yet Yueying reacted strangely to this as well; some dishes she accepted, but others she refused.

“You don’t like vinegar?” he said cordially.

“Not tonight,” she said.

He took a bite of the spurned dish of chicken. “What a pity for you to have to miss it. It’s delicious.”

The more serene he was in his strange questions, the more flustered Yueying appeared to become.

When the noodles were presented, Huang Chengyan could not hide his pride at how long and unbroken they were. “These are your finest yet, Yueying!”

His compliment at least she accepted with unalloyed pleasure. “Thank you, Father.”

“Indeed,” said Zhuge Liang, after he had eaten his first mouthful. “Her husband will surely have a long life.”

Yueying did not know what to do. This had always worked! He couldn’t possibly be as unaffected by her appearance as he was acting. She looked at her father, who was staring up at the ceiling as if offering to let the gods take him up into heaven right there and then in exchange for this miracle.

To her relief, her suitor began engaging her oldest half-brother in conversation about his studies, and the dinner did not go on very much longer than that.

“What an extraordinary evening this has been,” Zhuge Liang said as he stood up at the end of the meal. “Master Huang, I cannot thank you enough for the invitation.”

Huang Chengyan began his ridiculous repeated bowing again. “Must you leave so soon, Master Zhuge?”

“Alas, my house is very inconveniently located,” he sighed. “Perhaps Lady Huang would be good enough to accompany me during the Lantern Festival celebrations? I’m afraid I don’t know of any suitable chaperones, but—“

“Absolutely no chaperone necessary!” cried out Mrs. Huang, but paled a bit at Zhuge Liang’s look. “I mean… with your reputation, of course…!”

He laughed, but this time without humour. “What do you know of my reputation, Mrs. Huang?”

She didn’t know a damn thing and didn’t care either, and everyone there knew it. As far as she was concerned, her stepdaughter being dragged behind a bush and murdered would be an ideal outcome for the day.

“Surely Xu Shu could accompany you?” suggested Huang Chengyan hurriedly.

“Hmm. Yes, I think that could work. I look forward to it.”

Yueying caught him in the stables before he could go. “My lord, are you certain you wish to be seen with me in public?”

“I am not a lord, Lady Huang. And I was actually thinking of something more like a long walk through nature. The weather that day will be perfect.”

“The weather… how do you know?”

He hoisted himself up into his saddle. “I also have talents, Lady Huang.”

She watched him ride off with a strange feeling in her stomach.


	3. the Lantern Festival

元宵節 the Lantern Festival  


_The Lantern Festival is the last day of Chinese New Year. The most important part of the celebration is the lighting of paper lanterns, firecrackers and fireworks, sometimes said to appease the desire of the God of Fire to see everything in flames. The lanterns often have riddles written on them. This is also a traditional day for courting._

“Are you really interested in this girl, Kongming?” demanded Xu Shu as they rode towards Huang Chengyan’s house.

“I am.”

“And is her appearance as bad as they say?”

“Her appearance? Yes.” He laughed. “Yes, her appearance is quite impressively hideous.”

“Then… then why?”

“I will be interested to see whether you can tell me after you meet her,” said his friend. “And how much you see.”

Xu Shu stared at him. “It’s a false ugliness?”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“But if a girl doesn’t want to get married to the point of disfiguring herself… is it a challenge?”

“It is not a challenge.” He frowned. “I am not completely certain myself, yet, why she does it. I need to speak to her alone to find out.”

“But I’m supposed to be your chaperone.”

“I know. Her father obligingly suggested you straight away. I thought I would have to veto at least a few people before he brought you up.”

“You want me to leave you alone together? Then why bother with a chaperone at all?”

His lip curled. “Her stepmother irritates me. If I told her I intended to rape her stepdaughter, she would offer to hold my clothes for me.”

“Yes, everyone says her hatred is why Master Huang is so desperate to see the girl married off.” Xu Shu sighed. “Alright, I admit I don’t see what your plan is, but I trust your intentions are honourable. When will I separate from you?”

“Did you bring an umbrella?”

Xu Shu looked up at the bright sky. “An umbrella? But why?”

“In that case, I shall point out a pavilion to you where you will plead a need to rest your aching feet,” his friend said calmly. “One of us at least needs to remain dry.”

———

Xu Shu had his boots off and was rubbing his feet as they walked slowly off together.

Yueying was more puzzled than ever. He had been so insistent on a chaperone, but now he wanted them to walk off, instead of staying with his friend? And yet if he had some lecherous purpose in mind… if anyone could, with her looks… why did he not even offer her his arm? And why was he wearing a bamboo hat, like a farmer?

“I have never heard of anyone taking a hike on the day of the Lantern Festival,” she said, hugging her arms to herself. It was unusually warm for the time of year, but she always tended to be cold. “Usually we relax during the day so we can stay up late to see the lanterns.”

“Do you study the weather at all, Lady Huang?”

“The weather? No.”

“You do not find it an interesting topic?”

“You can’t control the weather.”

He looked down at her. “You only have interest in what you can control?”

She thought about it. “I don’t know. I suppose it felt like a waste of time to study things that I cannot control when there is so much I don’t know about things that I can.”

“Hmm, I can see that.” She looked up and saw that he was staring up at the sky. “But I must disagree. Regardless of whether we can change the weather or not, we have so many decisions to make that are affected by it.”

She looked at the sky too. They were walking across a wide, treeless field, left to fallow.

“Is that not a remarkable cloud?” he said, pointing at a cloud that was like a great tower or pile in the sky. “It is called a cumulus cloud. Ordinarily, they indicate fair weather.”

“Ordinarily?”

“May I take your hands, Lady Huang?”

She was puzzled, but she held them out. “Why?”

“So you cannot get away,” he said calmly as he grasped her hands, one of them by the wrist.

There was nothing sinister or threatening in his tone, and she did not know how to react. His hands were very warm and his touch was firm but not rough. She did not like to be touched, but this limited, business-like grip was bearable. Yueying looked down at his hands. “Where is your fan?”

Something wet hit her shoulder, and the top of her head, and then again and again in more places. “I did not want the rain to ruin it,” he said.

———

He saw her eyes widen as she took in the import of both his words and the raindrops falling faster and faster. He had thought that initial shock might frighten her into trying to run, but either she reacted to surprise by freezing or she believed that it was not worth trying to escape. Her hands trembled, but she looked up at him as the drops became a drizzle, the drizzle became rain, and the rain became a downpour.

His bamboo hat shielded his face, but her head was bare, and without the use of her hands to block the make-up running into them, she soon had to close her eyes. He was interested to see that the rain didn't seem to affect the hair’s consistency or colour; apparently that was something more permanent.

She wore a down-filled coat and in the rain it quickly became waterlogged. It must have been very heavy, but she continued to stand just as straight.

It was only about fifteen minutes, but fifteen minutes of total silence seems quite long. He had deliberately taken one of her hands by the wrist such that his hand would cover her pulse and to him it was like studying an intricate picture. After the fifteen minutes the downpour lessened and then abated and the sun came out again.

“Quite a remarkable cloud,” he said, breaking his gaze from her for a moment to watch it drift away.

“You tricked me,” she said quietly.

“How did I trick you?” he said, turning his gaze back to her. “Did I tell you something would happen that did not happen, or that something would not happen that did? Did I wear a disguise?”

She drew a breath in sharply. “I didn’t say that _I_ wasn’t trying to deceive you.”

“It would be a little late to say it.” He let go of her hands and untied her coat, which could only make her colder with how wet it was, and slipped it off. “You should take that brace off. It may actually damage your spine, you know.”

Yueying unhooked it and stretched slightly as she stood up straight. “I only wear it briefly, when my father brings people by to evaluate me as a wife.”

“It still wasn’t a good idea,” he said. “Surely it was an unnecessary detail? I doubt there are many who would accept the rest of your presented flaws but draw the line at scoliosis.”

She sighed. “I guess I was a little too proud of myself for inventing it.”

He squeezed the coat out as best he could and draped it over his shoulder, then reached into his sleeve for a waterproofed pouch with a small towel inside, which he presented to her. She removed the false nose and dropped it into the dirt before wiping her face.

“How did you know it was all fake? No one ever has suspected it before.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “I have a friend who cannot resist making insulting remarks, and yet when everyone else was mocking your looks he said nothing. It made me very curious indeed.”

“Who?”

“His name is Pang Tong.”

Her mouth twisted and she looked at the ground. “He’s as odd as I am.”

He laughed. “Yes, but I can tell you he is not wearing a disguise to hide good looks.”

“So why not just tell me you saw through it?” she challenged him. “Why all this?”

He hesitated, and perhaps just a hint of a flush tinged his face. “I wanted to impress you.”

If she saw the flush she didn't react to it. “I’m too cold to be impressed.”

He took a compactly folded thin cloak from the waterproof pouch, tied it around her shoulders, then offered her his arm. “There is a dry coat for you in Xu Shu’s package. I hope I estimated your size accurately.”

As they walked back, she pressed him further on how he had seen through her disguise, and he calmly pointed out the lack of jaundice in her eyes, the lack of blistering for such a severe sunburn, her strange diet choices all avoiding acid, which he concluded may have undone the discolouration of her teeth. “Not to mention that if your teeth were that badly cared for, surely you would have lost a few by now…” He trailed off as he looked down at her; she looked wilted. “I don’t mean it wasn’t convincing. The overall effect was so appalling that it repulsed scrutiny, and I have to say that I wasn’t at all sure that the nose was false. I thought I might have to learn to live with that.”

She looked up, startled, and he smiled. “Yes, Lady Huang, this is all because I want to find a wife, remember?”

“Why do you want a wife like me?”

“Mmm. Several reasons.” He hesitated, not sure which to share now and which to reveal in time. “I want a wife who is a partner.”

“What exactly do you do?”

“I learn,” he said simply.

“And how do you use what you learn?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Because I’m very practical,” she said. “I want to make things. Useful things, that make people’s lives better.”

“I think that is admirable.”

“But you don’t want to do the same?”

He was silent, and the flush was back. Having to repeat _I don’t know_ was the last thing he wanted to do. He hated ignorance. Zhuge Liang let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know.”

“Then how do you know you want to marry me?”

In just a few moments they would come within range of Xu Shu again. “I cannot explain why I want to marry you to you until you marry me.”

“Is that a riddle?” she demanded. “I know it’s the Lantern Festival, but that is not fair.”

“Funnily enough it is not,” he said. “I… I would not have the right to explain it to you.”

“What right? From who?”

He stopped walking, and she did as well. “Why don’t you want to marry? Don’t be angry at me for not answering your question. We don’t have that much time.”

Her objection preempted, she answered his question. “Because I can’t be sure I could control a husband as I control my father and his wife.”

He smiled. “You want to control your husband? Is that a non-negotiable? I do not at all wish to be controlled by my wife.”

“I have things about myself I cannot give up.”

“What if you trusted your husband never to ask you to do so?”

“I don’t know you.”

“How long would it take you to trust me?”

She was silent, and after a minute, he spoke again. “Have you considered that your father will not live forever?”

“Neither will you.”

“Compare the fate of the hated stepdaughter of a widow to a widow in her own right.”

This had clearly not occurred to her. She bit her lip, and then said, “Why do you want to marry me so badly, to rush me like this? It isn’t as if you’ve got to get your claim in front of someone else.”

“If you stop wearing that disguise, I might.”

She ignored this. “And all you have to do is tell my father you’re willing to marry me and legally I won’t have a choice.”

“I thought you said you can control your father?”

“If there were an actual suitor in front of him I would lose.”

“Revealing your weaknesses to your opponent is a poor strategy… unless you want him to defeat you.” Her face didn’t change, and his eyes narrowed. “Is that what you want?”

“Is everything a battle to you?”

Three _I don’t knows_ in the space of five minutes. If this was a battle, he was not at all sure that he was winning. “I don’t know.”

She sighed. “Yes, it’s what I want.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

“No one ever thinks I’m happy.” She frowned. “Are you?”

“Happy?”

“Yes.”

“I am also rarely described as happy,” he said guardedly. “I think I may accurately describe myself as pleased.” He paused. “And hopeful.”

She nodded but said nothing, and he resumed their walk forward.

Xu Shu was leaning against a pillar, twirling his hook and looking bored. He was startled and suspicious when he saw Lady Huang, shivering and wet and coatless and not anything like as hideous as she had been thirty minutes before. And carrying… a back brace?

“If you will open that package you watched over for me, Yuanzhi, then Lady Huang may be able to be made more comfortable. Alas, that we were caught in that sudden shower! It is fortunate that I had a cloak to offer her when it was over.”

Silently Xu Shu cut the string on the package. Sure enough, it was a winter coat, very similar to the one that had been soaked by the rain.

“Do you think I should bother finding a matchmaker, Yuanzhi?” Zhuge Liang picked up his fan. “I feel on one level that it would add unnecessary delay. I have never heard of a matchmaker that did not find some flaw in the birthdates or the number of strokes in the characters of the names or who knows what that could be corrected by doing some ridiculous and expensive remedy. Yet there is something distasteful about directly haggling with one’s future father-in-law.”

“The customs exist for a reason. ’Respecting caution, valuing correctness, and creating the intimacy between the husband and wife—that is the grand scheme of the wedding ceremony,’” Xu Shu quoted.

Zhuge Liang sighed. “Yuanzhi, I have just been at pains to indicate to this lady that I do not desire slavish obedience from her, and here you are quoting to her from _the Book of Rites.”_

She smiled. “It isn’t all bad. ‘Therefore, the man and wife form one body, of the same rank, and equal in affection.’” She paused. “I admit that there are very few decent lines in that section though. I trust you will not be expecting me to preside over a harem of a hundred and twenty?”

Zhuge Liang smiled. “I will not.”

As they began to walk back, she added, “At least he didn’t quote from _the Book of Etiquette_. Insufferable book. ‘Here is your gift back.’ ‘I venture to decline to receive back my gift.’ ‘I dare not fail to give you back your gift.’ ‘I cannot accept the return of my gift.’ ‘I am a humble servant and have no authority not to return your gift.’ ‘Well now that you’ve insisted an arbitrary number of times, I will take my gift back, even though we both knew right from the beginning that I was going to take it back.’ My god, why can’t people just say what they mean the first time?”

“Indeed,” he chuckled. “If one believes it necessary to exactly follow that book’s directives, I am not at all sure where I am to acquire a live wild goose at this time of year, simply in order to have a messenger present it as a gift in order ask your father your name.”

She nodded vigorously. “As if you didn’t already know it! Ridiculous waste of time!”

Xu Shu was silent, walking at a few paces back as they continued their enthusiastic contempt for the _Three Rites._ Well, to be more precise, she vented her contempt, and he encouraged her to express it, which was not exactly the same thing, and that subtle difference was bothering Xu Shu very much.

———

Despite his friend indicating that Xu Shu could leave while he brokered the marriage, he remained in the library, semi-reading _the Classic of Filial Piety_ , which he knew by heart already.

Zhuge Liang was surprised to see him still there when he left, but was perfectly willing to leave together.

They rode slowly. “Well, Yuanzhi? What did you see?”

“Several things,” Xu Shu frowned. “I am not so much of a taoist as you are.”

“You imply that you saw that you saw something but could not perceive its extent?”

“Her _qi_ was…”

“It was indeed.” He sighed. “I even sensed something from her calligraphy, but in her presence it is almost overwhelming.”

Xu Shu’s frown got deeper. “How does her father fail to notice it?”

“He is not looking for it.”

“I was not looking for it.”

“But you and I are both young men, Yuanzhi.” Xu Shu looked over at him sharply. Zhuge Liang had a lightly mocking quality to his smile. “Why do you look at me that way? I am taking her as a wife, am I not?”

“You cannot do _that_ with a wife.”

Zhuge Liang tutted. “Is even the euphemism ‘the bedroom arts’ too much for you?”

Xu Shu would not be embarrassed into dropping the subject. “You knew what I meant and I repeat that you cannot do that with a wife.”

“Why not? You admit yourself that you are not a taoist. You have spent less than a year as a pupil of Master Water Mirror, and I am sure he has not instructed you in it. Do you think that reading a few books on the subject makes you an expert on that area of the Way?” His smile became insufferably smug. “Especially if you had your hand inside your robes the entire time you were reading them.”

Xu Shu pulled his hood over his face, but he knew it was not in time for his friend not to perceive his blush. However, the dragon’s next words were much less derisive. “I suppose I cannot criticize your desire to defend a young woman from what you imagine to be her imminent destruction. You are my friend, so I will reassure you that I do not even intend to harm, much less destroy her.”

“Do you intend for her to be spared harm?”

“Well-spotted.” Xu Shu wished he did not feel a glow of pleasure from his friend’s mildest compliments. “I threw that one in just to keep you in practice. Yuanzhi, I intend to enjoy her for decades and decades.”

“Is that an answer to my question?”

“You should have spent less time running around being a vigilante and more time listening to our master,” Zhuge Liang sighed. “It is exhausting continuously mystifying you.”

Xu Shu dropped the subject then. When he was like this, there was no getting anything out of him. However, at least he had been somewhat reassuring, and it was not like Xu Shu had any power to prevent the marriage from happening in any case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All translations from classical Chinese are my own work.


	4. the Festival of the Dragon Raising Its Head

The Festival of the Dragon Raising Its Head  


龍抬頭 _Longtaitou Festival: The second day of the second month on the lunar calendar (in February or March of the solar calendar). One of several dragon-worshipping festivals important in ancient China, this one also represented preparing for the coming agricultural year. In particular, it was a day for burning pesticidal herbs to attack hibernating insects before they can awake._

Yueying tied the bags of perfumed herbs around her half-siblings with a sigh, wondering if her stepmother was really setting up the fumigating herbs to wipe out any possible hibernating insects like she was supposed to be doing, or if she was still at her post at the window, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the bride price.

He had visited a few times, and every time, her stepmother contrived to throw the two of them together unchaperoned, often in places with long couches or beds. Yueying didn’t really mind though; he showed not the slightest inclination to press this advantage, but continually talked with her about her own passions.

When she attempted to find out more about him and his interests, he somehow always turned the conversation around so that it was once again about her. She had lost her patience to the point of directly challenging him on this at their last meeting, and he had said that upon their next meeting, he would lend her a book that they could discuss.

“After all, at that time, I’ll have delivered the bride price,” he had said. “No turning back then.”

She had puzzled over these last words ever since. No turning back? She was a woman, and in the eyes of society there had never been any “turning back” possible for her. And she had told the truth when she said that with an actual suitor in sight, her ability to control her father would evaporate.

A loud crowing of joy was heard from the front of the house. She sighed. Her suitor was there, and she had no doubt that the poisonous herbs were still sitting in a bag next to her stepmother. There would be no time to burn them now before the day was over. Now in the summertime…

She stilled.

In the summertime, she would not be there to see the infestation of insects, if it occurred. She would be in an entirely different house.

———

His future father-in-law ran out to greet him with joy, barely paying attention to the wagon of gifts. “Ah, Crouching Dragon, an auspicious day for you!”

Zhuge Liang bowed. “I intend it to be so.”

Mrs. Huang burst out of the door not long behind him, but her eyes were all for the wagon. “How wonderful to see you!” she told the symbolic gifts, and when she turned her eyes to Zhuge Liang and saw him extending a stack of red envelopes to her husband, her smile got even bigger, to a grotesque degree.

———

The gaudiness of the bright yellow bride price gold did not at all suit Yueying, Zhuge Liang thought. She ought to be dressed in jade and silver.

They were left unsuitably alone again at the connivance of her stepmother, and he reached into his sleeve. “I know that a book should not be given as a present, but this is not precisely a present, as it is mine and will remain mine,” he said. “But when we are married it will also be yours, and in the meantime I would like you to keep it with you.”

He placed the book in his lap and did not offer it to her. “Before I give it to you, do you think you can keep this book hidden from your family?”

She stared at him. “Why?”

“I will have no need to tell you why if your accepting it is not possible,” he said evenly.

“They have no interest in my things.”

“You will need to go beyond trusting in that with this,” he said. “Do you have somewhere you can hide it in your bedroom? Do you share the room with anyone?”

“No, I don’t.” She thought for a minute. “You are including servants, or just my family?”

He frowned. This was not like him, to be imprecise unintentionally. “Yes, I should have said including servants.”

She thought for a minute more. “Yes, I can hide it.”

He still did not hold the book out to her. “The reason why is that your father would not want you to read this book.”

Puzzled, she said, “What is it about?”

“It is about how we will follow the Way in our marriage,” he said, and his voice barely perceptibly trembled. She did not notice, but he did.

“Why would my father not want me to know that? He seeks to follow the Way as well.”

“Because even among adherents of the Way, they perceive barriers here that I do not believe are meant to exist,” he said. “I think we will be… happier in our marriage if you have time to study this before we marry. However, if you feel filially bound to follow your father’s probable scruples, we can wait until we are married to begin.”

She was silent for a moment. “No turning back… you meant my father cannot easily turn back, now that he has accepted the bride price?”

So she had been pondering his final words to her all that time? “Exactly, Lady Huang.”

“Then he is already surrendering his control over me to you.”

“That is so.”

“And in this liminal period, I can decide?”

“If you will walk the path that I walk with me, you will always decide,” he said.

That was a sentence she was going to need to ponder for a while, she thought. Aloud she said, “I want to read it.”

He held out the book, and she lifted into her own lap and examined the cover. _The Joining of Essences_.

“Do not try to read it except when you know you will not be disturbed,” he said, “and I must make one thing perfectly clear. I know you have a mind that likes to test things empirically. Do not attempt to test anything in this book before we are married. When I say anything, I mean it absolutely and comprehensively. When we are married, I will help you test or explore anything you want to.”

She frowned. “Can you tell me why it is important?”

“Things can only happen for the first time once,” he said. “And I want to be there with you when they do.”

She looked down at the book again and nodded. It was a reasonable answer. She slipped the book into her sleeve. “I will begin reading it tonight.”

He let out a sigh that was ragged, and she looked up, startled. His colour was a bit heightened. “Are you ill, my lord?”

He smiled. “Lady Huang, I am not a lord, as I told you before.”

“You will be my lord.”

Zhuge Liang leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

‘I could call you Kongming, if you prefer it.”

“For the time being, that will do,” he said.

“Are you ill, Kongming?”

His smile twitched. “I am not.”

“When will I see you again?”

“You want me to go so soon?”

She laughed, a bit guiltily. “I am very curious, and you don’t wish me to read it here.”

“I wish it, but it would not be wise.” He stood up. “I will try to arrange something in a few weeks time, but perhaps not until the Shangsi Festival.”

She was torn, because she really wanted to run away from everyone and start reading the book, and yet a few weeks was a very long time to be apart from him. But he was already leaving, and she did not have the words to express these complicated feelings.

———

“So it’s really true that you’re getting married.”

It could have been a question, but it was not. Zhuge Liang regarded her and did not reply.

River Mouth shook her head. “I won’t waste my time with you anymore once that happens,” she warned him. “You won’t have enough _jing_ leftover to be worth my time.”

“I have not come for that, mistress. I have come to say goodbye, and to thank you.”

“To thank me?” She tilted her head and stepped forward out of the threshold of her grotto. If he had not known better, he would have thought her the same age as himself. Even in the sunlight her skin was smooth and clear. “I gave you nothing as a gift. You paid me well, and you will never even use it. What a waste.”

“I will use what I learned from you, but not as you have used it.”

“But you have really learned so little,” she said, her voice suddenly intoxicating and full.

“I can go no further down your path, mistress,” he said, and was surprised that he was managing to have it come out unaffected.

“Which road will you take, Crouching Dragon? Are you content to follow a weak reflection of a reflection, like Zhang Lu?” Her lip curled. “Or are you too frightened to grasp at true immortality, and seek the mundane continuance of children?”

“I will follow the Way, but I do not know where it is leading me.”

“You tell me to my face that I have left the Way?” she said softly. “What strange gratitude.”

“No.” He hesitated. “I cannot be sure of that. _It occupies the space that all humanity despises, therefore it is near to the Way._ ” He quoted from Laozi’s words on the excellence of water.

This oblique reference to her taoist cognomen seemed to please the woman. “But you doubt it.”

“In my first lesson, you brought me to the point of begging you to take my entire life from me,” he said calmly. “How many have you actually taken up on that offer?”

The lip curl became a smile. “Oh, only those with no further potential.”

He sighed. “I cannot reconcile it.”

“You are still so sweet,” she said, but with her voice merely a normal, pleasant female voice. “And yet you perceive so much. How did you know that I could do so?”

“Because the idea to say those words did not come from me. You were toying with me. I was like a puppet in your hands.”

“It is the most pleasurable death this world can offer,” she said. “Far kinder than the one you will actually meet, whatever it is.”

“That I believe.”

She actually frowned. “What will you do, Crouching Dragon? If you live a quiet life, without a wife, I suppose you have about twenty years. With a wife in the conventional manner, no more than ten.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You took that much?”

“You have not been using what I taught you.”

“Up until my betrothal, I was.”

“Insufficiently.”

He laughed. “I am limited by funds.”

“Limited is right.”

Zhuge Liang knew what she meant, and could not answer her.

She turned on her most magnetic voice again. “How about one for the road, then?”

The crane fan twitched, as if pulled, but its bearer said, “But I have no further potential, mistress…”

River Mouth laughed, long and sincerely. “Cunning, cunning! Goodbye, Crouching Dragon. Call me River Mouth, since you are no longer my student.”

He bowed. “Goodbye, River Mouth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I invented both _the Joining of Essences_ and the Taoist sage River Mouth. Almost all Han Dynasty and earlier Taoist sex manuals have been lost. I give my imaginary sex manual the name 和氣論 Heqi Lun in Chinese and my imaginary sage the name 河口 Hekou.
> 
> The Zhang Lu that River Mouth throws shade on is the same Taoist master Zhang Lu whom Ma Chao would later serve, part of what Dynasty Warriors calls the Five Bushels Sect, AKA the Celestial Masters. Zhang Lu wrote a text opposing contemporary Taoist sexual practices.
> 
> I used my own translation of 處衆人之所惡，故幾於道 from the _Dao De Jing_.


	5. the Shangsi Festival

the Shangsi Festival  
上巳 _Shangsi, celebrated on the third day of the third month (late March or April), was a traditional day to celebrate the ripening of spring, with the natural connotations of matchmaking and fertility._ _It was a day where restrictions on meetings between unmarried men and women would be loosened, if not removed, and outings would be made to riversides, where hardy souls would ritually bathe. People would float fertility symbols like eggs, dates and cups of wine along the water and consume what floated to them. It was also a day to flirt through the medium of poetry and song, both traditional and spontaneous._ The Book of Songs _records several songs that are believed to be intended as back and forth chants between men and women._

Yueying stood silently behind her stepmother as the woman presented a pig to the temple of Gao Mei on her behalf. The temple courtyard was noisy with the sounds of terrified sheep, goats, pigs and cows and she could just barely smell what was making them so terrified—the scent of the slaughter within, as the High Matchmaker goddess revelled in her feast day.

Through a gate she could see husbands ritually presenting their pregnant wives with sheathed bows. A wish for sons.

She wondered if she would be here next year with Zhuge Liang, receiving a bow with downcast, demure expression. Somehow that didn’t seem like him…

The puzzling text and pictures of the book returned to her mind, as they had done continuously in the past month of his absence.

The man with his mouth on the woman’s mouth.

The man with his mouth on the woman’s breast.

The man with his mouth on the woman’s cave.

The man’s face, vague and uninterested. The woman’s face, vivid and… in pain? The text claimed it was not pain, but the expression certainly looked unpleasant. “High tide,” said the text. The summit of desire.

A priestess, a woman who was herself heavily pregnant, came up to accept the offering of the pig, and Yueying stepped forward to be blessed. The woman reached up to touch the birthmark on her forehead and Yueying found herself flushing, but she couldn’t understand why. She had purposefully made herself something to gawk at for years; why was she being self-conscious now about such a minor flaw?

The priestess was chanting, and Yueying closed her eyes to block out at least one sense as she submitted to the woman’s hands on her breasts and abdomen, calling down the blessing of the goddess to cause her to conceive, to carry to term, to deliver safely and to suckle her infant. She had to force her feet not to break out into a run, her arms not to push the woman away, her hands not to cover her ears to block out the screaming animals and chattering people. It was too much, too much!

“You are highly favoured,” said the priestess suddenly in plain language, “but I do not know the source or the outcome.”

Her stepmother was immediately suspicious of a money grab to reveal more about this mysterious fate. “You must talk to her husband about that next year,” she snapped, grabbing her stepdaughter’s arm and tugging her away.

Yueying looked over her shoulder at the priestess, one hand holding the lead of the terrified pig, the other raised in a benediction gesture, held over the middle of the priestess’s own forehead.

———

Pang Tong lay on his stomach in the grass and reached out into the river to grab a cup, and lifted his face mask briefly to chug the contents.

“The women are coming,” someone called.

Pang Tong hastily adjusted his face mask, and he heard a low chuckle.

“Fledgling Phoenix, why is it that it is the ugliest who are the most vain?” Zhuge Liang practically purred.

Pang Tong laughed. “Oh, on a beautiful spring day like this, I would hate to turn the stomachs of the ladies!”

A group of giggling maidens, with a few chaperones trailing at a distance, came down the gentle slope of the hill towards the young men who were playing by the river, floating eggs, dates, and cups of wine along its gentle, winding path. Some of the men had stripped down to various levels of undress and were actually in the water, despite the cold; it was considered lucky, and it also enabled the bathers to grab more wine than anyone else.

Xu Shu was one of the bathers, and had perhaps drunk more wine than he knew. He loudly recited from _the Book of Poetry_ : “The leaves of the gourd are bitter: the river is too deep to ford! Plunge in where it’s deep, and lift up clothes where it’s shallow!”

The maidens shrieked, delighted to be scandalized, and the men laughed. “Yuanzhi, you’re too drunk! They don’t know what you’re quoting,” guffawed Shi Tao.

But one of the women called back, “Enticing boatman, others will cross but not me! Others will cross but not me—I must await a friend.”

It was the final stanza of the poem Xu Shu was quoting, and the men stilled with a mixture of respect and intrigue at the elegant woman who spoke the flirtatious rebuke. Most of them did not recognize her, even the ones who had met her before, but three did.

Another one of the women, jealous to have so much attention diverted to Yueying, began singing loudly a risqué song, and other women and men began to join in.

Pang Tong sighed. “I had hoped to have her for myself eventually, you know.”

The crane fan swept in a lazy arc. “If you recognized her worth, why did you not act?”

“Ah, well,” the masked man shrugged, lolling back on the grass as he peeled an egg, “It hardly seemed fair to her.”

Zhuge Liang smiled. “Yuanzhi fears I intend a fate worse than death for her.”

The eyes crinkled. “Yuanzhi is a fool. He doesn’t even know what he fears… not that you intend that, I trust?”

“Are you concerned for her as well?”

Pang Tong sighed. “I did not expect her to be as beautiful as that.”

It was not on the face of it an answer to Zhuge Liang’s question, but it appeared to satisfy the Crouching Dragon nonetheless. He got up and moved to the bridge to approach his fiancee.

As they walked a little apart from the group—chaperonage was famously lax on this day, despite it being the only time of year that elopements were legal—they were silent for a time.

“Do you like poetry, Kongming?” she said suddenly.

“I like meaning,” he replied.

She nodded. “I read your book.”

All morning he had been serene, superior, and a little withdrawn from his fellows, but this simple sentence from her shook his composure. He had not expected her to bring this up here, even if they could not be overheard, and he had not expected her reaction to be so… level. Excitement, fear, disgust, intrigue, embarrassment—he had prepared for all of those, but not this.

She tilted her head at his lack of response. “I thought you wanted to discuss it when we next met?”

He had indeed said that, but he had been counting on an inappropriately intimate and unheard conversation with her in her home that evening, with the help of his contemptible tool the stepmother. Out here, in the day, exposed, somehow wasn’t right, even if it was more or less as private. Too… too _yang_. “I was waiting for your reaction, Lady Huang,” he lied.

She bit her lip, and he thought the reaction was embarrassment after all, but she said, “Well… I found it hard to believe.” She sighed. “And I didn’t test anything, since you said not to. Not that I exactly could have tested it alone, anyway.”

Apparently the implications for solo activity escaped her. The work was aimed at men, as every written work he had ever found was; perhaps she took its strong warnings against self-stimulation as being universal rather than specific to men.

“And you should know…” She looked away from his face, up towards the bright spring sky. “I don’t like to be touched, so… I’m not sure. It seems… I’m not sure of the word… overwhelming. I don’t like… too much stimulation. It seemed… it seemed to involve a great deal of touching.”

Zhuge Liang ran his fingers along the shaft of the crane fan and was glad that she was still looking at the sky. He did not know how to reply immediately to this revelation, but he was confident of his ability to solve the problem. The track of his mind naturally ran along strategic lines. To a certain extent, this even seemed fitting. Of course such a great resource must have obstacles to obtaining it.

“Does this change your determination to marry me?” she asked the sky.

“It does not.”

“Is that only because it’s too late to turn back?”

“It is not.” She turned her face back towards him, and he gazed at the birthmark on her third eye. “I prefer music to poetry, generally. Do you play?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My own translation of 匏有苦葉 Pao You Ku Ye from the Odes of Bei from the _Book of Songs_.  
>  匏有苦葉、濟有深涉。  
> 深則厲、淺則揭。is what Xu Shu quotes, Yueying replies the last stanza:  
> 招招舟子、人涉卬否。  
> 人涉卬否、卬須我友。


	6. Hair-Combing Ceremony

Hair Combing Ceremony  
_The night before the wedding, a happily married woman (often the mother or other relative) combs the hair of the bride or the groom (this is traditionally done separately, in their own homes). Symbolic objects are laid out and traditional blessings are recited. The woman faces out a door or window, to symbolize that she is leaving her home; the man faces inwards, to symbolize that he is remaining in his._

Mrs. Huang was suspicious when her husband offered her the horse to go to the town and buy herself anything she needed for the wedding banquet, but the prospect of a new dress was too good to pass up. Still, she hurried so that she would be back in time for whatever he intended her to miss.

She was too late to do anything but watch in horror as she saw the wagon loaded to bursting with an obvious dowry leaving their gate. The goods inside were covered up, but their sheer amount, plus the fact that her husband had obviously tried to keep this a secret from her, made it obvious that it was a substantial dower.

Mrs. Huang swept past the wagon and confronted her husband, quickly pulling from the quaking man an exact account of what they had sent away on his worthless oldest daughter. It was worse than she expected. The total amount basically wiped out the bride price. The man whimpered that Zhuge Liang, though a fine man from a fine family, lived an austere life without servants and thus his dear Yueying needed to bring everything with her to make her life comfortable. Comfortable! How dare that brat seek to be comfortable at the expense of his _real_ family!

As weak as he was, there was nothing she could do at this point. The dowry was gone and could never be gotten back. She schooled her features into an expression of acceptance and swept off, bitterly thinking that for all her faults, the girl was actually more than worth her room and board in the amount of work she did around the house. So there would be nothing gained from her departure. That bitch seemed to be put on this earth to torment her! And now she would be expected to smile and act like a loving mother and bless her!

Well, she wouldn’t bless her. She wouldn’t bless her at all.

———

Sima Hui and his wife shoved the bridal bed a hand’s width back against the wall, symbolically installing it and thus passing on their own luck as a long-married couple with many children and grandchildren. “Well, my work here is done,” he said with a yawn. “Looks rather out of place, doesn’t it? Very good, very good.”

The ornate bed, ostentatiously carved and fitted with sumptuous linens, did indeed look out of place in the humble house on the hill that Zhuge Liang called home. His master’s wife dumped a basket of candies, fruits and nuts on the bed and called out, “Let them in!”

The children, some of them his master’s, some those of cousins and friends, scrambled into the room and launched themselves onto the bed in a frenzy, tiny hands grabbing at treats and eating them as fast as possible, while the adults chuckled indulgently.

Zhuge Liang was not observing this. He was in his study, listening to servants who wished to report on one minor disturbance after another for the wedding banquet. When there was a lull, he said, “Shiyuan, is your father alive?”

“He is,” said Pang Tong.

“Under no account should you allow him to pass on until you have taken a wife,” suggested Zhuge Liang. “Let him do all this for you. Poor Yuanzhi, you will be in my same predicament soon enough.”

Xu Shu drank tea. “Kongming, do you not have an older brother?”

“I do, in the service of the Sun clan. I wrote to him of my nuptials, but I did not expect him to participate beyond a cordial reply. He lives the life you aspire to, Yuanzhi.”

Xu Shu frowned, wondering if this was a warning that their own friendship would similarly cool if he succeeded in finding a lord to serve.

“Are you perhaps reticent to serve as my brother in negotiating the release of my bride from her home? I doubt it will be a difficult task. I am more concerned that her stepmother will shove her at you before you can even—no. How silly of me. That woman will never overlook an opportunity to obtain a red envelope.”

“I am honoured to serve you,” said Xu Shu with a nod. “I simply feel unworthy.”

“Let us suppose you have offered to withdraw and I have insisted that you continue the arbitrary number of times, and that you have submitted. What time we save by this method!”

Xu Shu laughed. “You agree with your bride’s opinion on the Book of Etiquette, I see. I thought perhaps you were just humouring her.”

The crane fan swished and a slow smile spread over Zhuge Liang’s face. “No, she is not one who is flattered by agreement, I think.”

Pang Tong sighed. He had been unusually withdrawn all day. “Lucky man.”

———

Yueying sat naked on the bathing stool and rubbed herself slowly with the pomelo water, which was now nearly cold, but she did not at all want to leave the bathroom and submit to the hair combing ritual. It was a foolish reticence, because she knew it would only take about five minutes, but her stepmother had been worse than usual all day. The woman ought to have been happy that this was her stepdaughter’s last day in the Huang household, but she was looking almost murderous.

With a sigh, she got up and dried herself off, she slowly pulled on the new night clothing and slid her feet into the new slippers, then quietly walked towards her bedroom.

It was completely dark except for the light of the dragon and phoenix candle, barely illuminating the symbolic objects before the mirror. Her stepmother stood there, but with her eyes unadjusted, she could not see her well. Yueying was surprised that her half-sisters were not there, but perhaps they were considered too young.

Yueying sat down on the stool before the mirror and her stepmother picked up a large wooden comb and set the teeth on the crown of her head.

“Face the window, not towards the mirror,” said her stepmother. “After tonight, you will be outside of us.”

Yueying turned her head and body, and the teeth of the comb scraped her scalp lightly. She waited for her stepmother to begin reciting the blessings, but she did nothing. Silence. Only the sensation of the teeth of the comb pressing down slightly.

“You think you’re such a clever girl,” hissed her stepmother, and Yueying gripped the knees of the nightgown, startled. “Clever little Yueying didn’t want to be married, but she found a man that she thought would _respect_ her, isn’t that right?” She laughed mockingly and suddenly pulled the comb down hard, sweeping through her hair down to the tips. Yueying had cut her hair down to nearly nothing when her deception had been found out to get rid of the damaged hair, so it only reached the nape of her neck now.

“You little fool,” Mrs. Huang continued savagely, placing the comb back on the crown of her head and savagely combing again. “You have no idea how he _looks_ at you. You’ve never recognized the emotions of others—how often I have thought that you were born broken. Even as a child, you were like a weird little puppet, never reacting normally to anything, never perceiving what was most obvious.” She laughed again. “But it turns out for the best, because you’ve let yourself be caught by a _wolf,_ my dear. Do you know what he’ll do to you tomorrow?”

Yueying continued to sit, frozen, the images of _the Joining of Essences_ flitting through her mind. She had told Zhuge Liang of her aversion to touch, but she realized he had said nothing in direct response, merely reiterated his determination to marry her regardless.

“No, you don’t. Twenty years old and not the slightest tremor of passion in your mind. _Broken_. But your body, my dear, despite all the trouble you went to hide it, your body isn’t broken at all. At least not yet.” The comb caught on a tangle and her stepmother ripped through it viciously. “I wonder, will you be frozen like this, or will you try to fight? It won’t matter, whatever you do… he may not be much of a man, but he’s more than enough to hold you down, little Yueying. He’ll take his rights from you. I doubt he’ll even be restrained enough to stop once you’re pregnant. And when you’re pregnant, little Yueying, you’ll feel someone touching you all the time. Someone _inside_ of you. An ordinary woman rejoices to carry a child, but a broken little bitch like you—that thought must terrify you, doesn’t it?”

She laughed again. Her stepdaughter always got the best of her, but not tonight. Tonight, for once, she had no response.

“I’m supposed to _bless_ you,” she spat. “How can I bless the worst thing that’s ever happened to me? Even in leaving me, you harm me! No, I won’t bless you. You’ll be pregnant very soon, little Yueying, and when the child attempts to leave your body, it’s going to get _stuck.”_ Yueying began to shake, and her stepmother laughed even louder. “Yes, _stuck_ , Yueying. It’ll never come out, and it’ll kill you and itself. That’s exactly the fate you deserve.”

She blew out the phoenix candle and slammed the comb down. “Enjoy your last night as a virgin,” she said snidely, and left.

Yueying grabbed the blanket from her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, willing herself to stop trembling. After a few moments, the shaking eased and she was able to light a lantern. She picked up the phoenix candle and relit it as well, then sat before the mirror.

She picked up the comb and turned it over in her hands, trying to remember the blessings. Her mind was a blank.

The comb ran through her hair gently, lightly. “Happiness, happiness, happiness,” she whispered.


	7. Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The _guqin_ song mentioned in this chapter is real and is really attributed to Zhuge Liang (although of course scholars don't believe it actually was written by him--c'mon, next you're gonna be telling me he didn't invent meat buns). If you'd like a little mood music as you read, [here is a YouTube performance of it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm7jzbUFOd8).

Wedding  
_In traditional Chinese culture, the culmination of a wedding is the wedding banquet, in which the groom’s family pays for an elaborate celebration with many expensive symbolic foods to allow extended family and friends to rejoice in their gaining of a daughter-in-law._

Yueying was not quite sure how it happened. She had been to many weddings, and the wedding night was always the same: the nuptial chamber more or less a free for all, where the relatives of the new couple tormented them with remarks, tricks, and games.

Was it the remoteness of his home—her home, now, she supposed—that drove the guests off so easily? Was her new husband speaking incantations when she drew first this and then that guest aside at the banquet? Whatever the cause, he had told her to get in the carriage, and she had done so. When she looked out the window, no one was in the street but Pang Tong, his mask rendering him expressionless as he lit the firecrackers. Her husband’s cloaked form and black horse could barely be seen in the moonlight, and she had withdrawn her head as the spooked horses set a fast pace.

She opened the door of the carriage nearly into his face when they reached their destination, but he merely smiled at her.

“Not accustomed to being waited on, are you?” he said. “There is not really a path, and in the dark it is perhaps prudent to accept my assistance.”

She took his hand and even with his assistance nearly stumbled as they climbed the hill, his other hand holding the reins of his horse; the hired carriage could be heard rumbling away. He led her to a small side building, handed her the reins of the horse, and stepped inside for a moment, then reappeared with a lit lantern. He traded the lantern for the horse, and said, “This is the kitchen. Please take a look inside and see if everything is as you will need for breakfast. I will stable the horse and prepare our home. Would you like me to come and get you when everything is ready, or would you prefer to make your own way?”

Absurd thoughts of running off into the darkness or hiding inside the woodpile floated through her mind and popped like bubbles. “I’ll come in myself.”

She peered around the gloomy kitchen and recognized that almost all of its cookware had come from her dowry. The parts of her wooden men were neatly stacked in a corner, and she was relieved that no one had assembled them. Not only did she not trust anyone but herself to do so, but she could only imagine how creepy they would look in the dark of this strange place.

Yueying sat down on a stool and looked out the window towards the main house, watching as fires and lanterns were lit. Everything was fine in the kitchen; she should go in.

She did not move.

After an unknown amount of time had passed, she began to hear the sound of a _qin_ being played.

She got up, left the kitchen building, and walked to the front door that she had, earlier that day, hopped over a saddle to enter. Now she merely walked in without flourish, but not without hesitation.

The sound of the instrument was coming from a nearby room. She extinguished the lantern and walked in.

Her husband did not pause or look up from his playing, but _qin_ pieces were never very long and he had already been playing for a few minutes. As he played, she studied his elegant scholar’s hands, the fingernails of the right hand looking like little claws as they plucked the strings, while those of the left hand were trimmed right down. When he had finished, she spoke before he could. “Was that one of the pieces you were telling me about—that you composed?”

“Yes,” he said.

“What is it called?”

“The Intonation of the Water Dragon.”

Barely two questions and she was completely out of ideas to keep the conversation going. She wanted the conversation to keep going and to keep going right here, in the study, with him kneeling before an instrument and her standing by an exit. She did not really know why she had entered the house in the first place. The music had jolted her out of her freeze and pushed her into accepting the inevitable, but now that she was in the same room as _the inevitable,_ it seemed like a supremely stupid idea.

He tilted his head. “Was the kitchen as you wished? I do not cook, myself, so I had to have the kitchen constructed for you, and it has never been used.”

“It was fine,” she whispered, and she did not know why she whispered.

“Is there something specific that is bothering you?” he said. He stood up, and she shrank back against the wall. “Ah. Just that?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered, damning her voice for betraying her.

He walked over to the desk and picked up _the Joining of Essences,_ keeping his back to her _._ “When we last spoke of this,” he said, “you seemed skeptical and, if I may so characterize it, displeased at the concepts within, but it was the displeasure of someone confronted with a mildly irritating task such as a journey on a hot day or a bowl of bitter medicine. But now you are terrified.” He turned and regarded her silently, expectantly.

It was one of those pauses where she knew she was meant to say something, but she did not know at all what to say.

After a moment he said, “Someone has been telling tales, I think. Your stepmother?”

Her eyes dropped, and his narrowed. Zhuge Liang put the book down.

“I should have expected as much and warned you against her nonsense. Will you tell me what she said?”

“She…” Yueying forced her voice out of the whisper. “She was supposed to comb my hair and bless me, but… she said… she said…” She looked back up at her husband’s face and thought of her stepmother’s mocking of her inability to read his expressions. She thought he looked concerned, but maybe she was wrong… “She said you would hold me down and make me pregnant,” she said in a rush, and immediately stared at the floor again.

“She was wrong,” he said. “Was there anything else?”

“She cursed me,” she whispered. “She said the child would get stuck and kill me.”

Yueying heard a sharp intake of breath. “Yueying, look at me.”

She looked up, and this time thought the face was angry, and wondered if she would ever be able to look at him again without doubting whether she understood what his face was trying to say.

“She was wrong, Yueying,” he said firmly. “She has no power over you. You’re free.”

“I’m not free,” she said. “I’m your wife. I’m under your power.”

He closed his eyes for a moment at her words. “If you’re under my power, then _I_ can break the curse,” he said, and walked towards her. “Do you trust me? Nothing she said will come to pass.”

She inhaled and tried to think of the matter with her usual rationality. “You could harm me if you wished, and you have not so far.” That did not exactly mean _I trust you_ , but it was as far as she was willing to commit herself.

He held out his hand. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

She accepted the hand of the inevitable.

———

He was glad he had perceived in time that someone had attempted to frighten her. Her stepmother had known her since childhood and knew exactly what to say to damage the girl the most. Inadvertently, this provided him with more clues as to what he would have to overcome to join with her. Zhuge Liang pondered this as he walked with his bride towards the bedroom.

She was made uncomfortable by too much touch, he knew from her own admission, and she described it as “overwhelming” and “too stimulating”. Now she had summed up her stepmother’s curse as being about being held down, impregnated, and killed in childbirth. No—killed in childbirth specifically from the child being stuck in the birthing canal. That was significant.

Being unable to escape, perhaps… is that what Yueying found horrifying above all else?

But she hadn’t reacted with terror when he’d held her hands in the field on the Lantern Festival and _told_ her outright that it was so she couldn’t get away.

So it must be something more than simple inability to escape.

They entered the bedroom, and he had stoked the fire to make the room warm and bright.

He released her hand. “Have you ever been massaged, Yueying?”

She was staring at the bed with a slight frown of concentration. “Yes, once… some beggars came to the house and they had a blind woman with them who did it. I didn’t want to, but my father had already given them money so my stepmother insisted we get its worth.”

That sounded like the miser. “Was it unpleasant?”

“Surprisingly not,” she said, darting a glance at him. “There was some pain, sometimes, but it was kind of… satisfying? I felt like…” She searched for the words. “I felt like progress was being made, and that was interesting for me. Like I was the machine that someone else was working on—fixing. And she was very…” Another search for words. “I’m not sure. Not threatening, perhaps. She was smaller than me and I was only about ten at the time. But the next day…” She suddenly laughed.

He smiled. “Painful?”

“Terrible! I didn’t get out of bed. I _couldn’t_. My stepmother was just as bad, fortunately, or she would have been all over me for laziness. But the day after that I felt great!”

“This will be not quite the same as that,” he said, “but I would like to massage you when we begin.”

In reminiscing about this childhood experience, and in particular in laughing, she had gradually relaxed, and she now visibly tensed. She took a breath and exhaled, releasing some of it, but not all. “Do I undress?”

“I… would like to undress you… if I may…” He would have disdained his own hesitancy—so unlike him—except that it seemed to reassure his bride, because she smiled and turned towards him.

“You asked very _respectfully_ ,” she said, her lip twitching after the last word as if it held some private joke. It knocked him a little off balance—was she being sarcastic? And if so what did she mean by it? A little ruefully, he thought that the irritation of Xu Shu at being unable to perceive the meaning behind his sarcasm at times was understandable.

“Does that mean I may?”

“Ah… yes.” She looked embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to be unclear.”

“It’s alright,” he said. “We will become accustomed to how we communicate in time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to yell at me for cutting it off here, yes I am a tease, and yes the next chapter will have explicit content.


	8. the Joining of Essences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Juicey who has been waiting for like a month for me to update Clouds & Rain. Writer's block is kicking my ass on that one I'm afraid. I'm puttering on some other stuff (and playing some DW8) and waiting for the block to crack. It will eventually, I'm sure!
> 
>  _Xieyi_ is a kind of undergarment that would have been worn by women in the Han dynasty. Basically it's a piece of cloth tied with string at the hips, kind of like a string bikini, as opposed to the male loincloth, which would have been more or less the same as the Japanese fundoshi (ie a long strip of cloth that is wrapped and twisted and tucked around the body).

He undid the tie on her belt, on the outer garment, on the inner garment. His movements methodical, never lingering or caressing. He neatly folded each item and piled it on a small side table. Every time he stepped away, he sensed the drop in her anxiety. Every time he stepped back, it was higher than it was before.

Is her fear just from her stepmother? Or perhaps—his mind recalled other manuals—perhaps this is just how it is for virgins. He had never actually been with a virgin before… he could remember, of course, what the manuals said about overcoming the terror of a virgin, but they had quite a different relationship in mind. A transactional one, to which the girl herself was not actually a party. The intention to take as much as possible of the girl’s _jing_ —even if it meant turning her into a husk. And to that end, overwhelming the enemy with pleasure to simply drive the fear out of her conscious mind was sufficient. The trauma that would doubtless set in afterwards? That meant nothing. _She_ meant nothing—no more than an empty bottle after the elixir has been drunk.

It would not be so between him and his wife. That was what he had decided, and he had to prove it.

The last thing he removed is her breast binding, and he did it from behind her, so that she could cover herself with her arms if she felt shy. “I’ll massage your back first,” he said quietly.

Keeping one arm across her chest, she moved the other hand to the strings of her underwear uncertainly. “You don’t want to remove this?”

“You can if you wish,” he said, carefully sidestepping the issue of what he wants. “I thought you might be more comfortable for now with it on.”

Her gaze dropped, and he thought it was a submissive fear response, but then realized that she was looking at his body. “It seems… it seems unfair that I’m so exposed and you are not.”

Beneath his wedding _hanfu_ his heart beat a little faster. “You want me to undress?”

She kept her gaze on his clothing. “Maybe I should undress you?”

Rather than respond with words, he stepped close enough for her to reach him, where she was already reaching out. At first she fumbled with the fastenings, but as the layers came away he felt her fear subsiding, even as his own anticipation built. She kept her eyes on his body and he wondered if she felt the intensity of his own gaze.

Yueying did not attempt to touch his loincloth, perhaps because he left her underwear alone as well. Still not having looked at his face, she turned away, towards the bed. “My back, you said?”

“Yes.”

She laid down on the bed and moved her arms around slowly and awkwardly like a starfish thrown above the high tide mark, which made him smile. “How should I put my arms?”

 _Concerned about doing things right._ “It doesn’t matter,” he answered. “I’ll move them as I need to.”

True to his word, he knelt beside her on the bed and picked up her right arm by the hand, beginning with the palm. This would be a tricky balance. Unlocking everything would increase her energy flow—possibly beyond anything she had ever felt before—which could easily exacerbate her anxiety. He would have to monitor this carefully… while containing his own excitement at touching her for the first time.

But all his training and all his meditation was for this.

She carried a lot of tension in her arms and shoulders, minute from delicate motions, and brunt from large ones. All that tinkering, he supposed. It made starting with the arms an even better choice, as he could soothe out the muscle kinks at the same time as he unlocked the points. As the muscle tension released he could not only sense but see her sinking deeper into the mattress.

“That feels pretty good,” she said, with cautious appreciation.

“Thank you,” he said politely as he encouraged a knot in her shoulder to release.

As he dragged his thumbs down either side of her spine some time later, she sighed, “You’re better than she was.”

He chuckled, and moved his thumbs in circles on the top of the back of her pelvis, letting his other fingertips lightly come to a rest on her bottom, the thin silk of her _xieyi_ bunching slightly. She didn’t startle at the touch, but he didn’t press further, instead moving to her feet and beginning to work up.

———

“Please turn over,” he said.

She had been so relaxed that she wondered if she might fall asleep, but this mild request sped her heart rate a little. Supine somehow felt more vulnerable than prone, perhaps because prone she could keep her eyes closed with no awkwardness. People expected eye contact.

Nevertheless, she rolled over. Her arms automatically came up to cover her chest, but he didn’t stop them. Instead, he moved so that he was kneeling behind her head, looking down at her face upside down.

He rested his fingertips on her forehead and frowned. “You have a headache,” he said, not as a question.

The elegant fingers traced over her face methodically and came to a stop on the extreme ends of her jaw. “Ah,” he said with what she thought was a smirk—facial expressions upside down were even harder. “Too much fake smiling today?”

She felt tension leave her face as he pressed on various points, but she could not actually respond with him working so much on her face and jaw. The headache eased.

When he moved his hands beneath her skull to massage at her scalp, she was able to say, “That feels better, thank you.”

He smiled, gently pulled his hands out, and ghosted a thumb across her lips.

Long before she could react, he was back by her side, with an arm under his control, working it in a similar way to when she had been prone. She was relieved to discover that her other arm had reflexively moved over to cover both breasts while her mind had blanked.

It had been… like a kiss…

He moved slowly to the other side, which gave her plenty of time to get her arm into position so that when he picked up the other arm, her breasts would not be exposed. 

Again, he didn’t comment. He finished the second arm and moved on to her feet and legs, skipping over the very tops of the thighs. Then, as he caressed her abdomen, he laid his right hand on the arm concealing her breasts.

“May I touch you here with my hands?”

Obviously he didn’t mean her arm. Her analytical mind threw up a red flag at the fact that he had specified _with my hands_ —images from the book flashed into her mind—but logic quickly pointed out that his request was _limiting_ him to the use of his hands. So if anything, that should be more reassuring than simply asking to touch her.

He was smiling again. “It will feel good. I promise. You can tell me to stop if you do not enjoy it.”

The arm slowly dragged itself back to her side.

His touch at first was no different than it had been on the rest of her body. It was an intimate act, of course, and it wasn’t precisely detached, but it wasn’t lecherous or groping either.

Her husband—still a term that shifted her world off balance—looked down into her eyes, still smiling.

“Yueying,” he said softly, “how are you feeling? Less afraid?”

Her heart sped up a bit. “Uh… earlier… when you said I could tell you to stop… did you mean…” She wasn’t sure how to ask.

He waited a minute for her to continue, and when she didn’t, said casually, “Did I mean you could say that at any point tonight?”

She nodded, mouth dry.

“Certainly. Whenever we are in the bedroom, I want us both to be fulfilled. It will only be better if you communicate with me,” he said, and tilted his head. “May I kiss you?”

Another hesitant nod.

He leaned down to kiss her, and for the first time one of his hands caressed one of her nipples. She felt it respond to his touch as his lips pressed against hers. His eyes were closed, but she didn’t close hers. She didn’t dare.

His lips parted and his tongue prodded between her lips softly. She was frozen and did nothing. The strange sensation in her breast almost felt as if it was happening to a person in a story she was reading, not in her own body.

He pulled up and chuckled softly. “Open your mouth?” he suggested.

She was confused, but as he lowered his mouth to hers again she did so.

As his tongue swept into her mouth, his other hand began to touch her other nipple, and something about this triangular stimulation suddenly integrated her with her body hard. It felt _good,_ just like he said. Her eyes fluttered closed, then sprang open again as she suddenly became aware that a fourth and fifth area of her body were responding: cool tendrils twisting and extending from her lower abdomen and a sort of throbbing below that.

Her hand gripped his shoulder and he murmured, “Should I stop?” just above her mouth.

“I don’t know,” she panted. “I don’t understand…”

“Don’t try to,” he said, not ceasing the movement of his hands, and she found her hips twisting against the bed of their own accord. “Understand it later…”

His mouth was on hers again, and a feeling was building within her.

High tide.

This must be what the book meant, but it was getting higher and higher, impossibly high…

…and breaking…

“Kongming,” she choked out through his kiss as the sensation of her first orgasm swept through her. The passion of his kiss intensified, and she felt as if a torrent was swirling through them both, from her core, through her body, to his body, and back to her body through his hands on her breasts.

The orgasm suddenly pulled back like a violently receding rip tide, and instead of intense pleasure, the caressing of her nipples was suddenly painful.

She gripped his shoulder again and croaked out, “Stop,” before he could ask her meaning.

He immediately pulled his hands away and returned to his kneeling position. She was relieved that he did not look displeased at her request for him to stop. Instead, at least if her interpretation of his face could be trusted, he seemed proud.

“You are so responsive,” he said. “Arriving with such force just from that touch… amazing.”

“That was… high tide?” It isn’t like her to ask obvious questions, but she wanted desperately to be assured that she had something right about this strange new world.

“That was high tide,” he agreed.

Her breathing and heart were returning to normal. He regarded her with that same—proud? satisfied? happy?—expression as it did so.

“When I enter you tonight, it may or may not hurt at first—I cannot be sure. I think I can say that if it does hurt that the pain will not last, and that you will end by feeling the way you did just now…” The corners of his mouth twisted up. “…am I right to say you enjoyed it?”

“It was…” She searched for an accurate word, found none in her vocabulary, and resorted to a vague categorization. “…good.”

The mouth twisted up higher. “I’m glad.” He dropped a brief kiss on her lips, and seemed to scrutinize her for a moment. “Remove your _xieyi_ and lay on your right side, please.”

As she did so, she couldn’t help glancing down as he removed his own loincloth. _It_ looked more or less as the illustrations had depicted it. She wasn’t particularly bothered by a fear of pain and its duration, rather, as she laid on her side and stared straight ahead at a wall, she puzzled over the idea that there was, somehow, space within her to accommodate such a thing, when she had never been aware of any gap or cavity of such a size before. Her own keen interest in sockets, nuts, bolts, and other mechanical interlocks makes her chafe at the notion that she could be so ignorant about such a potential connection in her own body—

—and the thought flew away as she felt his body pressed up against her, behind her.

His left hand rested itself on her hip, and she twitched a bit.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” She could feel his breath on her as he spoke. “I’m going to see if you’re ready now.”

The hand slid down the front of her thigh, and she felt her core and her cave and her heart and her lungs all responding before he had even reached his destination, cupping her sex gently for a moment, then sliding a delicately tapered finger between the labia.

He pulled the hand away from her and up, and she could see exactly what he saw as he rubbed the index and thumb together, glistening. “Perfect,” he said, and sighed, an exhalation that sent a blow of air over her neck like a ghost. As she shivered for a moment reflexively, his right arm snaked itself under her neck.

This kind of sensation was uncomfortable for her, and she closed her eyes to block out one sense as she felt his left hand between their bodies, doing something. He laid a kiss on her neck and murmured, “Now, Yueying.”

Then he entered her.

She gasped, and her eyelids fluttered. His mouth pressed to her neck again as his left hand slipped to the front to massage—what had the book called it? the pearl, the divine field?—and his right arm bent at the elbow, the palm pressing to a breast and applying slow, gentle friction, and then he began to move within her, and it was all, it was all, it was _so—_

“It’s too much,” she gasped.

“Stop?” he murmured.

“ _No,_ ” she said emphatically, and he laughed as his speed increased and she lost herself in the sea of pleasure, battered by the waves, drowning in it.

Her eyelids fluttered again, giving her strange still images of her body and his hands upon it.

 _He is playing me like he played his qin_.

She tried for a moment to pick out parts of the whole, but it’s like trying to find one drop of water in the basin.

So she followed his advice and told herself to understand later.

As her body shuddered and her mouth moaned from her second orgasm, he slowed his thrusts to almost no movement of all, and she heard him sigh deeply. He pulled his hands away perhaps a touch too early, but it was probably better than that abrupt switch over to overstimulation.

They laid there in silence while her breathing slowed again.

“Beautifully done,” he said at last.

Yueying blinked, and shifted onto her back to regard him, still on his side. “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything.”

He chuckled again. “You’ll learn differently. Trust me, you did your part better than even I expected, Yueying.” He brushed a tendril of hair from her eyes. “I can hardly wait to see how you improve with study and practice.”

 _Better than this?_ Yueying blinked again.

“We can share this bed… or… I have another bedroom also…”

For the first time this evening, he looked unsure, awkward.

Yueying felt just as unsure, not knowing what answer was the right one. She decided to go with what she honestly preferred. “I think… I would like to sleep alone tonight… it’s what I’m used to and this is a big change…”

A face she could not read—it neither smiled nor frowned, but it did not look exactly neutral either—accompanied his nod. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

After he left, she extinguished the lamp and lay in the darkness in aimless, ineffective contemplation.

By the time she managed to fall asleep, she was clinging to one truth: she was no longer afraid.


End file.
